The Great Expectations School (14 page)

“Your kids behaved fine for the observation, but observations are not shows. What is important is how they behave every day for you, and I know it's not like that. How do you feel in your classroom? How does the room around you make you
feel
?”

“All right.”

Ms. Guiterrez shook her head. “If you would just walk in now and sit down at your desk, how would you feel? Would you feel good?”

I suspected a trick question. “Yes,” I said tentatively.

“I don't think so. Your room is… not lively. It has no energy. On the walls, I mean.” The August memory shot to mind of Guiterrez forcing me to turn my mom's colorful borders backside-up. “And worst of all, it is a mess.”

She had a point that I had barely any student work on display. My teacher's desk was a chaos of papers. I had not made those things priorities.

“Ms. Barrow is going to help you get these things on track. When your classroom looks good, everything works better. Nobody likes to be in a terrible classroom. I also highly recommend that you
walk around and look carefully at the rooms of some of the experienced teachers. It can be very helpful to you.”

Ms. Guiterrez shared her office with Abigail Barrow, a well-dressed older lady who helped with lower-grade teacher resource support. With the mention of her name, Ms. Barrow roused herself from reading some memo and joined the conversation. I was not thrilled about this new mentorship proceeding under Guiterrez's scornful eye, but I needed help and here it was. Ms. Barrow asked what I was teaching right now.

“In math, we're doing place value. In writing, we're doing memoirs. In social studies, we're finishing map skills. We're going to start Native Americans next week.”

Ms. Barrow's and Ms. Guiterrez's eyes lit up at the mention of Native Americans. Guiterrez inquired, “What are the focus points of that new social studies unit?”

“I think mainly the Iroquois and Algonquians from the
New York
textbook.”

The women exchanged a knowing glance. Ms. Guiterrez asked, “You need to have all of this planned out before you begin. What are the
enduring understandings
?”

I hesitated. There was definitely a preconceived correct response to this. “I guess they will have an enduring understanding of the Native Americans' lifestyle and culture,” I offered.

Wrong answer. Guiterrez asked in a deeply patronizing voice, “Mr. Brown, does it really matter if the students understand the lifestyle and culture of the Iroquois people?”

I thought it did. Wasn't that what elementary school social studies was about? I remembered making a diorama of ancient Egypt, and bringing in a kimono for my fourth-grade report on kabuki theater. We took mental field trips to the battle of Gettysburg, and stared at photographs from different vantages of the Taj Mahal. I recalled social studies at Johnson Elementary as a mishmash survey across time and continents, and I loved it.

Ms. Guiterrez threw off my concentration with her pronunciation of “Iroquois.” She said it exactly like “Iraqi.” I also was not sure if her pointed question was rhetorical, but she answered it aloud. “It doesn't matter. What matters is literacy. How is your social studies unit going to be a vehicle for improving literacy skills? Do you think it will make a difference on the Test if your students know a lot about Iroquois lives?”

Now I picked my phrases straight out of the New York State standards book. “Well, one assignment could be writing a journal entry from the point of view of a Native American child. It would be good for creating a narrative procedure and responding to literature.”

Guiterrez laughed. “Okay! See? It's not so hard!”

I wanted out of that room. I did not like at all how every conversation with Ms. Guiterrez bore a discomfiting overtone of her exerting authority over me.

“The students should not write cold,” she added. “They must do a prewriting activity on a graphic organizer.”

I knew this already. Graphic organizers, or various kinds of thought outlines, went without saying. I wanted to add that I never intended to teach my students lists of meaningless facts; of course literacy skills would be central to our social studies activities. The moment had passed.

“Okay, I have some business to take care of,” she said, grabbing some papers and striding purposefully out of the office, handing me a typed two-page evaluation for the formal observation. I got a satisfactory rating with the criticism, “There is no evidence of developmental lessons…. Their [
sic
] should be evidence of a print-rich classroom.” As for missing the developmental lessons, I can only assume that Guiterrez figured that the kids were bar graph experts on observation day by blind luck or osmosis. And I couldn't help imagining inviting her to sit in on my upcoming “their-there-they're” lesson with the fourth-graders.

So began my short-lived but fruitful collaboration with Ms.Abigail
Barrow. She talked to me as if I did not know thing one about anything regarding school, children, or human interaction, but she supplied some useful materials, including a thick batch of supplemental readings, questions, and activities about Native Americans.

She also ran 4-217's closing map skills lesson by writing questions on big chart-paper sheets and posting them at five stations around the room. The kids got excited to work in teams and rotate to the stations. I kept Ms. Barrow's questions on the walls for months, scoring compliments from Mrs. Boyd for fostering a more print-rich classroom.

The Ms. Barrow meetings petered out because we both recognized that while the help with lessons was useful, it was really in behavior management where 4-217 had trouble. As a soft-spoken older lady who had been out of the classroom for years, she could not help me there. It looked bad for her when my kids acted up while she conducted the class.

Ms. Barrow left me an invaluable set of desk-size laminated maps with the United States on one side and the world on the other. The kids loved them, especially since each student got his own, and they provided endless material for geography lessons, games, and fast-fix time-fillers. Cat Samuels borrowed them often.

“They are lost in the woods,” my new self-talking self explained to the bathroom mirror. “You have a map. You can teach them. You are Mr. Brown.” I frowned at the lopsided Windsor knot of my tie and pulled it loose to redo it.

In reality, my confidence in my lessons was improving, but my attempts to control Lakiya, Deloris, Eric, Lito, Tayshaun, Cwasey, and Eddie went nowhere. I could not get all seven of them to be quiet at the same time. If they somehow were, Bernard would be squabbling with Verdad, or Destiny would be upset about something her best friend Tiffany had said to her. Occasionally, Athena or Gladys Ferraro called out disruptive things, which killed me, because I counted on them to be my stars. My sentences in class alternated:
one about the lesson, one about discipline, one to answer a question, one to mediate a conflict. Getting into a rhythm was impossible.

Meanwhile, Daniel and Marvin stagnated in the back of the room. One time, Dr. Kirkpatrick picked Daniel up and returned him a half hour later. She told me that back in Detroit, Daniel was in intensive one-on-one special ed, and he should never have been placed in a regular class. She also asked me if I had noticed his stuttering problem and the long gaps of time he took before responding to a question. I told her of course I had. She explained that his speech problems were a blessing in disguise, because they could be the tipping point to push through a recommendation to transfer him to a specialized school. I filled out several forms with my analysis and anecdotal records about him.

Two months later, Daniel Vasquez left P.S. 85 to begin to get the help he needed.

Marvin Winslow was proving himself to be a dangerous boy. He stole Tiffany Sanchez's purple pencil sharpener, and when she asked for it back, he cold-cocked her in the cheek. I was reading with Dennis and Joseph and didn't see it. Sonandia tapped me on the shoulder and plainly said, “Tiffany is crying 'cause Marvin hit her.”

I spun to see Marvin darkly scowling at the sobbing girl. I flew into a rage.

“How dare you ever hit a girl! That is the weakest, most cowardly thing anyone could do! How dare you bring that into our classroom!”

I told Sonandia to take Tiffany to the nurse for ice. When they left, I continued my verbal lambasting, telling Marvin he was on lunch detention for a week, and if the class earned that Halloween party, he had certainly just thrown his invitation in the gutter.

“I don't care. I don't care,” Marvin muttered. “I don't care.”

He did care, because when the class lined up for lunch he remained in his seat, catatonic. The line got restless, and Tayshaun and Bernard started pushing each other. With the whole class's impatient urging, Marvin finally joined the line. Upon entering the cafeteria,
he separated from the group and pressed his face into the wall, crying, “I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm bad.”

“What you did to Tiffany was very bad, but you are not a bad person. Look at me. Marvin, look at me! If you accept your punishment for breaking the rules, you'll have a clean slate. I'll even think about letting you come to the Halloween party. But no hitting in school and no hitting girls ever. This is very fair.” I patted him on the shoulder and walked away.

As I left him, he punched the wall and cried, “I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm bad…”

I walked to the fifth-grade side of the cafeteria to sit with my summer school coauthor Jimmarie. She didn't have many friends in Mr. Krieg's class and preferred to eat alone by the window. I often sat with her for a few minutes; sometimes we talked, sometimes not. We appreciated each other's company, briefly allowing ourselves to forget the people with whom we spent a majority of our day.

That night, I called Marvin's and Tiffany's mothers to tell them about the punch. Both thanked me for the explanation and that was it.

The next morning, Marvin came to school chipper as ever. We did math in the morning, the only subject where he had a fighting chance of holding his own with the class. He understood the rules of place value, but if you gave him a worksheet, he would be lost. He needed every problem started for him. His effort that morning was outstanding and when he told me that the 6 in 12,685 is actually worth 600, I was thunderstruck with pride.

Yesterday, I had promised him a week of lunch detentions, but that felt like a remote world ago. I decided not to enforce the sentence and no one seemed the wiser. Also, a teacher tipped me off to the rumor that for punishment, Mrs. Winslow locked her children in the refrigerator. How could you stay mad at Marvin Winslow?

Meanwhile, trouble was brewing with Verdad Navarez. He had been absent the day before, and now he was silent all day, seething, almost hyperventilating in the back of the room, staring at his desk surface. I took him out in the hall and asked what was bothering him.
Verdad coldly mumbled, “Tomorrow I'm-a bring a gun to school and kill Eddie. I swear to God, I'm-a snuff him.”

Wait a minute.Verdad and Eddie were buddies. My skin pebbled with fear. I called the principal. Mrs. Boyd asked for Verdad's mother's phone number, but I knew their line was disconnected. Fortunately, Verdad's mom, Yvette Lara, was in the parking lot to pick him up at dismissal. She said she would talk to Verdad, and we arranged to meet in room 217 after school the next day.

The next afternoon, Ms. Lara and I sat down at group two while Verdad waited in the hall. She was probably my age. Biting her lip, she spoke in a straight voice. “You don't have to worry about Verdad bringing a gun to school. That's not him. He would never do that. He gets very angry sometimes. He's been very different since last spring when we think he found out… about his father. His real daddy died when he was a baby. My husband is his stepfather, but we never told him. He does have two brothers and a father with different last names than him.”

“Have you talked to him about it after you think he figured it out?”

“No. We should. He's got it tough. Please don't take it out on him, Mr. Brown.”

“No, of course not. I know Verdad is a great kid. Everyone likes him. And he's the number one mathematician in the class.” Ms. Lara cracked a shining, proud mother's smile. I showed her Verdad's flawless Birthday Bar Graph. “But he needs to bring a bag to school. And he needs to do his homework, especially in writing.” I showed her the class homework log. Verdad had completed his assignments decently in September, but in October he altogether stopped.

Her face fell. “He lost his bag. I don't know how he lost it, but it's gone.” I started to say something, but she continued, “I kept Verdad home the other day because he didn't have any clean clothes to wear. I don't know if I can get him a new bag. I need to get coats for three kids. They turned off my phone, which you know about…” She fell silent.

I didn't know what the hell to say. An idea flashed to give her the cash in my wallet, but all I had was six bucks, and that was the wrong move anyway. I called Verdad into the room. “Verdad, good news. You have a wonderful mom who loves you very much. She and I are going to work together to make sure the rest of the year is going to be better for you than it's been this month. You're a really smart boy, and I'm glad that you're in my class. Can we work together?” I extended my hand and he shook it. His face brightened, and I realized I had never before seen him smile. I think worlds were colliding for him to see his mom and teacher together.

Ms. Lara thanked me for meeting with her and she and Verdad went home happy. I felt good but a little strange. Nothing had changed in their desperate financial situation, but everything seemed sunnier from that day forward. Verdad did his work conscientiously and started bringing a bag to school. His demeanor was cheerful and his writing showed improvement. He was a changed boy for the rest of the year. That is, until his family moved suddenly over Christmas break and I never saw or heard about him again.